Chapter 222: Weaving Evil Qi and Death Energy
The process took several hours. But finally, Cao Yun had drawn the Po character at the Perfection level inside the Drop of Wrath. And now, he was able to prevent it from sucking in more and more Evil Qi. Cao Yun felt that he still had not full control over the Drop of Wrath though. If he tried to completely prevent it from absorbing any of it while it was around him, he could feel that the Drop of Wrath might revolt and wrestle against his will. But for now, it was docile.
Thus, Cao Yun reduced the pressure and only absorbed the Evil Qi directly around him. Thanks to that, he was able to prevent any of it from entering his organs of course, but also the egg that was still close to his heart. Moreover, all the Evil Qi that was revolving around his heart was also digested and gone.
Now that the situation was more calm, Cao Yun turned his attention to the bone hand in his soul of consciousness that was slowly being devoured by the Drop of Wrath. Part of the Po character inside the Drop of Wrath was in fact made of its Death Energy now. By using both his Chamber of Medicine Field and the intent of the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun was barely able to control Death Energy and Evil Qi. It still required an awful lot of mental strength, but it was feasible.
The easiest thing to do was still to let the Drop of Wrath itself take care of it. And Cao Yun just made sure that it was not absorbing too much of it at any given time. But now that he was almost certain that nothing would happen to him because of both of these energies coiling around the Drop of Wrath in his heart, Cao Yun decided to try and get more and more control over them.
After all, his enemies were demonic cultivators. And they were known to control Evil Qi to some extent. Of course, some ended up being destroyed by that Evil Qi, either by developing incredible inner demons who would devour their very being, or by corroding their own tissues. Evil Qi was very dangerous and allowed demonic cultivators to be more powerful than orthodox ones. But of course, this came at a price. Luduo Bu for example had completely lost control of it and his very being had been devoured and replaced by his inner demon.
Cao Yun had no intention of manipulating Evil Qi for his own cultivation. Even if he had way more control over it, he would not risk it. Besides the risk, the Evil Qi was also sinister by nature and he clearly did not like having that thing inside his own body. Moreover, he had the Drop of Wrath that could literally digest Evil Qi and turn it into its own energy but also into new blood full of pure Qi for Cao Yun. He had no reason to try and cultivate Evil Qi in these conditions. However, if he could gain more control, he would have an edge when fighting against demonic cultivators.
As such, the young man pushed his Chamber of Medicine Field to its limit. As time was passing, his vision of the bone hand got more and more precise. Right now, he was barely seeing a hand in fact. He was mostly seeing intertwined strands of Death Energy. In a similar manner, Evil Qi was now appearing to him as strands of pure Qi with various parasites coiled around it. Those things and Death Energy looked similar but they were still different. From the Evil Qi emanated an aura of hate, of resentment. In fact, when Cao Yun focused on it, he could feel his emotions being confused. Thankfully, his Chamber of Moving Pearls was keeping his emotions in check.
On the other hand, Death Energy did not seem to be particularly evil or heinous. However, there was an aura of death all over it. In a sense, Cao Yun felt just as though there was a rotting corpse in his own mind. Clearly, it was not enjoyable at all. But within the Drop of Wrath, he realized that this Death Energy was being refined. It was as though many impurities were burned away, just like for Evil Qi. Then, the Death Energy appeared perfectly white. The strands looked like silk made of ivory. In a way, it looked very similar to the Po character. And those strands were now coiling themselves around the Po inside the Drop of Wrath.
Seeing this, Cao Yun tried an idea of his. What the Drop of Wrath was able to do, he attempted to imitate himself. At first he still used the intent from the Drop of Wrath to help him though.
He focused an a single strand of Evil Qi. With his mind cultivation, he analyzed it thoroughly. Once he could clearly see how each smaller strands were intertwined around each other, he tried to unravel them. Very slowly, with utmost care, Cao Yun was pulling on strands here and there. Sometimes, a pure strand of Qi easily came off. Other times, it was tightly gripped by parasitic emotions. Just for one strand of Qi, the work was very meticulous and straining on Cao Yun's mind. Even with his advanced mind cultivation, just purifying one strand of Evil Qi was that intense. In a way, it was like shaving off the resentments of the dead. Of course, it was not going to be easy in the least.
After almost an hour of work, Cao Yun had finally been able to purify one strand of Qi. In that same time, he had tried to count how many the Drop of wrath had digested. And he had lost the count after only a few minutes and several hundreds of them... But this process had taught a lot to Cao Yun, both about his own mind and Evil Qi itself. This was a great way to train himself. Even though he was exhausted, Cao Yun still decided to try out purifying another one. He was convinced that he could be faster.
And he was. In total, he refined seven strands of Evil Qi. By the end, he was able to do so in less time than it was necessary to drink a cup of tea. It was still way longer than what the Drop of Wrath was capable of. There was no comparison. But Cao Yun was still only a late Mortal. If he were to become a Mortal Warrior, his control over Qi would be way stronger. Right now, even without the Drop of Wrath, he felt that he could resist or even control Evil Qi as long as there wasn't too much of it. Of course, here Evil Qi was at least three times denser than in the Hongchen Kingdom. Without the Drop of Wrath, he would never be able to resist that amount.
After all of this, Cao Yun left his sea of consciousness to see what was going on both outside and within his body.
The black rain was still falling. The noise was incredible. It almost sounded like Cao Yun was literally under a waterfall. The black sand that used to be cracked was now full of water. This brought a lot of questions to Cao Yun's mind. Was this rain extremely rare for the ground to have been completely dried, as though it had suffered from a drought? Or was there something special about this black sand here? Maybe the bones were responsible for it? Maybe it was the absence of this rotten grass around those parts?
Once more, Cao Yun had way more questions than answers. And he preferred not to try to guess. Making wrong assumptions could be dangerous in an unknown place. As long as he had no answer, he would keep an open mind and be vigilant.
When looking into himself, he realized that his blood was now twice richer in Qi. At first, he even wondered whether it was still his blood. The Drop of Wrath kept on releasing new surges of blood all the time. And into his veins, his old blood had mostly been replaced. Cao Yun had read about blood cultivation, but he had no experience. Still with his mind he tried to focus on the blood flowing through his veins and he clearly felt a connection. This blood was truly is, the Drop of Wrath had produced it yes, but it had no control over it at all. However, there was a different feeling to it. It seemed to be more vibrant than normal human blood. Thankfully, there was no trace of anything demonic to it, or of Evil Qi or even Death Energy.
Now that Cao Yun was not afraid about recovering his Qi, he decided to cultivate and put this new blood to the test. Purifying Evil Qi was a long and tiresome process which would not allow Cao Yun to recover his stamina. But the Drop of Wrath could replenish the Qi in his blood and he could more easily extract it from his own blood to then send it through his meridians.
Since he was kinda stuck under this giant white rib until the rain stopped, Cao Yun focused on his acupoints. He had already opened more than half of them. According to his own cultivation speed, it should take around four months to finally step into the final grade of the Mortal realm. Indeed, he had still around seventy acupoints which he judged difficult to open. Some were in sensitive areas, close to his heart for example, or near important arteries. On the other hands, some were in particularly hard areas where there was almost no tissue except for bone and skin. But after those acupoints, which would take a bit longer than others, he had only easy ones.
Cao Yun did not change his habits one bit. But this time his blood was way richer in Qi. And he felt the difference right away. As soon as he focused on his acupoints with his intent, the intent of the Drop of Wrath and both his Qi and blood, he could sense the acupoint come to life. It was immediately nourished by the thick blood in his veins. Imagining the acupoints like flowers, the blood looked like dew on those flowers. And as soon as they were showered with it, they became more delicate and also more vibrant. Most of the tension in the acupoints began to fade.
It was not to the extent of immediately opening up his acupoints. But it would greatly enhance his experience.
While he was at it, Cao Yun also revisited other acupoints, namely the ones through which Evil Qi had flowed through. Sadly, his worries had been right. Some had still some sequels of that trauma. Although the Evil Qi had quickly been absorbed by the Drop of Wrath, the entry doors they had used were sore. With his powerful mind, Cao Yun was even able to notice a few tears and cracks here and there. Just to be safe, he dedicated most of his time to repairing them.
Thankfully, there was no trace of Evil Qi in them anymore because the Drop of Wrath had absorbed everything. Thus, the damage was not too severe and most of all, it was not lasting. Just by nourishing his acupoints, especially with his vibrant blood, Cao Yun would be able to heal almost all the damage. To be on the safe side, he would also have liked to have some pill or balm to help him make a full recovery. Unfortunately, he had none on hand.
After two more days of uninterrupted rain, Cao Yun was beginning to worry. If he were to be stuck here for several weeks because of this rain, he would begin to have a problem with his reserve of both food and water. Obviously, he could go longer without eating, but he had no food at all. And he wasn't going to eat the egg, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, his gourd would not be able to replenish his water either. Cao Yun would not drink this black water. Considering the amount of condensed Evil Qi in it, not only would his throat be corroded, even the Drop of Wrath would not be able to absorb it fast enough.
If he were to drink this black water, Cao Yun's body would die before the Drop of Wrath could absorb even a tiny portion of the Evil Qi contained within. And Cao Yun's ability to purify Evil Qi was considerably slower.
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It had now been a week since the rain had begun. And there was no sign whatsoever that it would ever stop. Hopefully, it would vanish just as fast as it had appeared...
Using this time, Cao Yun had put all of his mind into cultivating and had opened eight more acupoints. It was half faster than his usual cultivation speed, with more difficult acupoints. This time cultivating had allowed his mind some respite. And now, he was ready to try something new.
In his sea of consciousness, the bone hand had finally been completely consumed by the Drop of Wrath. Inside the drop of blood, the new Po character was now complete as well. A great part of the refined Death Energy had been used to achieve this result. The impurities within the Death Energy had been totally burned away and not even ashes remained of them. Just like Evil Qi, the Drop of Wrath was able to refine what seemed evil or harmful while getting stronger and stronger.
The process that had happened within the Drop of Wrath gave a few ideas to Cao Yun. As a matter of fact, it had reminded him of what Xiao Xuefeng had written about the third layer of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks'. Usually, Cao Yun had to wait until he had mastered a layer before starting the next one. But that third layer was a bit different. The second layer required the Five Agents to energize the chambers of the Upper Dantian. And the fourth layer required both the achievements from the second and third layer. But the third layer could be attempted as soon as the Po character was complete.
However, having the chambers of the Upper Dantian energized was very useful. In theory, it could be attempted without them, but the last chamber especially would make everything way smoother.
As such, Cao Yun was not really trying to force through this third layer. But he was trying to figure out something. The third layer was 'Subdue the Seven Demons' and it referred to the Seven Turbid Demons born from the Po. The Po was formed at the conception and was responsible for building the body and then maintain it. At the end of life, it was also responsible for breaking down the body. As such, it was a part of the soul that was closely linked with the physical world. Most theories considered that the Po was in fact distinguishable into seven souls itself. And each one of those souls could easily be swayed by emotions.
This explained why Po was often responsible for the formation of inner demons. And it happened to be that Death Energy was a degenerate version of Po. Thus, Cao Yun wanted to test his ability to control, or even neutralize, this Death Energy. Compared with Evil Qi, it did not really appear evil per se, especially the refined version within the Drop of Wrath.